Explained | China’s ‘developmental’ security approach

The story so far: Late in May this year, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced that the U.S. chip giant Micron, which had been under investigation by the Cybersecurity Review Office, failed to obtain a security clearance, and that its products posed a threat to national security. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese discourse on national security has repeatedly underlined that the idea of ‘development’ cannot be isolated from that of ‘security’. At the recently concluded meeting of the Central National Security Commission, Mr. Xi said, “it is necessary to ensure the new development pattern with the new security pattern, actively shape a favourable external security environment for China in order to better safeguard its opening up and push for a deep integration of development and security.” It is fairly evident that Mr. Xi wants the developmental agenda to be qualified by security. Following up on the above amendments, China also unveiled in late May its position paper on Global Digital Governance that calls upon States to “respect the sovereignty, jurisdiction and governance of data of other States,” and to “not obtain data located in other States through companies or individuals without other States’ permission.” A combined reading of these documents with the Comprehensive National Security concept, first floated in 2014, suggests that the concept of national security has permeated each and every aspect of governance and developmental strategy during Mr. Xi’s reign. The victims of the recent crackdowns not only have the U.S.-China competition to blame but also China’s evolving national security discourse.